Miscellaneous

Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws

Posted on May 06, 2010
Murray Bessette, Morehead State University, has published "Montesquieu on Nature and Law: A Preface to the Understanding of the Spirit of the Laws," as a Western Political Science Association 2010 Annual Meeting Paper. Here is the abstract.While the title of Montesquieu's greatest oeuvre, The Spirit of the Laws, identifies the subject of the work, it nevertheless remains obscure...

A New Issue of Law, Culture, and the Humanities

Posted on May 06, 2010
The new issue of Law, Culture, and the Humanities is out. It includes:Charles Barbour, Sovereign Times; Acts of CreationJames R. Martel, Can There Be Politics Without Sovereignty? Arendt, Derrida and the Question of Sovereign InevitabilityJill Stauffer, Equality and Equivocation: Saving Sovereignty From ItselfOscar Guardiola-Rivera, What Comes After Sovereignty?Joseph Jenkins, Dead Hand Rising: Dialectics Beyond Last Wills in The Merchant of Venice and The TempestSharon Cowan, The Elvis We Deserve: The Social Regulation of Sex/Gender and Sexuality Through Cultural Representations of "The King"Jinee Lokaneeta, A Rose By Another Name: Legal Definitions, Sanitized Terms, and Imagery of Torture in 24Eugene Garver, Spinoza on Constitutional Interpretationand Book Reviews by Darien Shanske, Robert Nichols, Elizabeth I...

TV Judges and Tort Reform

Posted on May 04, 2010
Joshua Wilson and Erin Ackerman have published "TV Judges and the Civil Law Narrative" as a Western Political Science Association 2010 Annual Meeting Paper. Here is the abstract.This is a collaborative study examining the relationship between popular reality-based judge television shows, 'tort tales,' and the politics of tort reform...

A Review of William Domnarski's "Federal Judges Revealed"

Posted on May 03, 2010
Chad M. Oldfather, Marquette University Law School, has published "Oral History and the Study of the Judiciary," in volume 78 of George Washington Law Review Arguendo (2010). Here is the abstract.This essay, which is a review of William Domnarski?s ?Federal Judges Revealed? (Oxford University Press, 2008), explores the usefulness of oral history as a vehicle for understanding the judiciary...

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Tax Lawyers At the Movies

Posted on April 28, 2010
This post probably would have been à propos April 15, but it's still interesting. From Paul Caron's Tax Prof blog, here are "Tax Movies," courtesy of guest blogger Robert G. Nassau at Syracuse Law.In addition to the films mentioned, I'd suggest such goodies as Catch Me If You Can (2002) (the story of impersonator Frank Abagnale, Jr...

Evaluating the CSI Effect

Posted on April 27, 2010
Jessica D. Gabel, Georgia State University College of Law, has published Forensiphilia: Is the Public Fascination with Forensic Science a Love Affair or a Fatal Attraction?It is forthcoming in the New England Journal on Criminal and Civil Confinement...

Constitutional Law in the Movies

Posted on April 26, 2010
David Ray Papke, Marquette University Law School, has published Oil and Water Do Not Mix: Constitutional Law and American Popular Culture, as Marquette Law School Legal Studies Paper No. 10-09. Here is the abstract.Why have most fictional films and television series purportedly involving constitutional issues been commercial and artistic failures? Focusing in order on ?First Monday in October? (1981); ?The Pelican Brief? (1993); and ?The Court? and ?First Monday,? two short-lived American television series from 2002, this article suggests the works fail not because of a lack of creativity but rather because of the way they were produced...

The Eden Narratives and Law

Posted on April 26, 2010
Geoffrey P. Miller, New York University School of Law, has published The Dark Age: How the Biblical Narratives Demonstrate the Necessity for Law and Government as NYU School of Law Public Law Research Paper No. 10-18. Here is the abstract.In earlier work I argue that the Garden of Eden story in the book of Genesis explores a basic question for political theory: why people have an obligation to obey the law...

Rights Talk in Science Fiction

Posted on April 26, 2010
Christine A. Corcos, Louisiana State University Law Center, has published Visits to a Small Planet: Rights Talk in Some Science Fiction Film and Television Series from the 1950s to the 1990s. It is forthcoming in the Stetson Law Review. Here is the abstract...

Call For Proposals: New Series

Posted on April 22, 2010
Vijay K. Bhatia and Anne Wagner, series editors, are very pleased to announce that Ashgate will edit a new Series entitled Law, Language and Communication. The Series welcomes proposals - both edited collections as well as single-authored monographs - emphasizing critical approached to law, language and communication, identifying and discussing issues, proposing solutions to problems, offering analyses in areas such as legal construction, interpretation, translation and de-codification.

Legal Practice and Education in Edinburgh in the Early Twentieth Century

Posted on April 21, 2010
Hector Lewis MacQueen, University of Edinburgh School of Law, has published Lawyers' Edinburgh 1908-2008, at 8 Book of the Old Edinburgh Club (new series) 27 (2010). Here is the abstract.This paper considers the physical setting of legal practice and education in Edinburgh in 1908 and compares it to the position in 2008...

The Wire, National Security, and War

Posted on April 20, 2010
Dawinder S. Sidnu has published Wartime America and The Wire: A Response to Posner?s Post-9/11 Constitutional Framework in volume 20 of the George Mason Univesrity Civil Rights Law Journal (2009). Here is the abstract.Pragmatists subscribe to the view that an individual?s practical experiences shape and inform an individual?s concept of the law...

More Sports Law in the Humanities

Posted on April 19, 2010
Douglas E. Abrams, University of Missouri School of Law, has published Sports in the Courts: The Role of Sports References in Judicial Opinions, in 15 Villanova Sports and Entertainment Law Journal (2010). Here is the abstract.In cases with no claims or defenses concerning sports, the Supreme Court and lower federal and state courts frequently publish opinions that draw analogies to the rules or terminology of sports familiar to broad segments of the American people...

The Killing of Oscar Grant

Posted on April 13, 2010
Donald F. Tibbs, Drexel University School of Law, has published Who Killed Oscar Grant?: A Legal-Eulogy of the Cultural Logic of Black Hyper-Policing in the Post-Civil Rights Era as Drexel University Earle Mack School of Law Research Paper No. 1559489...

Abraham Lincoln as a Legal Writer

Posted on April 13, 2010
Judith D. Fischer, University of Louisville School of Law, has published Abraham Lincoln as a Legal Writer. Here is the abstract.This article draws on a recent collection of Abraham Lincoln?s legal papers as well as on secondary sources to show how Lincoln developed his genius as a writer...

Adrienne Davis on Star Trek and Gran Torino

Posted on April 13, 2010
Adrienne D. Davis has published Film Review: Masculinity & Interracial Intimacy in 'Star Trek' and 'Gran Torino', as Washington University School of Law Working Paper No. 10-03-07. Here is the abstract.Race has long been a central object of political reflection...

Treme

Posted on April 13, 2010
Some early reviews are in on the new series devoted to post-Katrina New Orleans.

Open Access To Law and Humanities Writings Via WikiSource

Posted on April 12, 2010
Timothy K. Armstrong, University of Cincinnati College of Law, has published "Rich Texts: Wikisource as an Open Access Repository for Law and the Humanities," as University of Cincinnati Public Law Research Paper No. 10-09. Here is the abstract.Open access to research and scholarship, although well established in the sciences, remains an emerging phenomenon in the legal academy...

Murder On a Train

Posted on April 11, 2010
ABEBOOKS.COM offers a list of "Murder on the Literary Express: Ten Top Train Thrillers." I've rearranged the list alphabetically by author below.Agatha Christie, 4:50 From Paddington.Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express.Dick Francis, The Edge...

Examining Antigone

Posted on April 09, 2010
Ruthann Robson, City University of New York, CUNY School of Law, has published "Democracy and Antigone," in volume 39 of the Stetson Law Review (2010). Here is the abstract.This essay explores democracy, sexuality, gender and legal practices using the frameworks of law and literature...

Raising the Bar DVDs

Posted on April 06, 2010
For Raising the Bar fans, DVDs of the first season are out, and the second season DVDs will be available May 11th.

An Originalist Interpretation of the Ninth Amendment

Posted on April 06, 2010
Louis Michael Seidman, Georgetown University Law Center, has published "Our Unsettled Ninth Amendment: An Essay on Unenumerated Rights and the Impossibility of Textualism," as Georgetown Public Law Research Paper No. 10-11. Here is the abstract.The Ninth Amendment - our resident anarchic and sarcastic "constitutional jester" - mocks the effort of scholars and judges alike to tame and normalize constitutional law...

USA May Offer New Legal Series Next Season

Posted on April 06, 2010
The USA network is nurturing some new shows for next season, including a new legal drama, A Legal Mind, from Aaron Korsh, whose last attempt, The Deep End, sank fairly quickly. A Legal Mind features a "twenty-something" and a corporate lawyer. Well, USA is the home of Psych, which is clever, and Monk, which I loved, as well as Burn Notice, which is MacGyver with a Kafka-esque twist, so I'm anxious to see what A Legal Mind offers us...

Symposium On Copyright In Culture

Posted on April 06, 2010
The University of Maryland is hosting UMUC?s Center for Intellectual Property to Host 2010 Symposium on Sustaining Culture in CopyrightWHAT: University of Maryland University College?s (UMUC) Center for Intellectual Property (CIP) will host a three-day workshop, June 22?24, 2010, entitled, ?Sustaining Culture in Copyright...

Screenwriter David Mills Dies

Posted on March 31, 2010
David Mills, screenwriter and blogger, has died of a brain aneurysm. He was co-executive producer of the HBO series Treme, set in New Orleans, and had worked on the series ER and The Wire. Mr. Mills died in New Orleans Tuesday.

Who Wrote Shakespeare?

Posted on March 31, 2010
From the Chronicle of Higher Education, discussion of a new book on William Shakespeare that takes up the "who wrote Shakespeare" debate. The book: Contested Will. The author: James Shapiro.

Biennial Literature and Law Conference at John Jay College

Posted on March 30, 2010
John Jay College is hosting the Second Biennial Literature and Law Conference, April 16, 2010.

Law and the Humanities Institute Presents a Symposium

Posted on March 30, 2010
Law & Humanities Institute, the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law Program in Holocaust and Human Rights Studies, and the Louise and Arde Bulova FundpresentThe Risks of Interpretive Flexibility When Basic Traditions Are Challenged by an ?Emergency?August 11, 2010atProspect HousePrinceton UniversityPrinceton, New Jersey 08544Registration 8:30am to 9:00am Program 9:00am to 5:30pmPanelists: Richard WeisbergEvent Co-Chair,President, Law & Humanities Institute,Walter Floersheimer Professor of Constitutional Law and Founding Director, Program for Holocaust and Human Rights Studies, Benjamin N...

Fan Fiction of the Eighteenth Century and IP

Posted on March 29, 2010
Elizabeth F. Judge, University of Ottawa Faculty of Law (Common Law Section) has published "Kidnapped and Counterfeit Characters: Eighteenth-Century Fan Fiction, Copyright Law and the Custody of Fictional Characters," at Originality and Intellectual Property in the French and English Enlightenment 22-68 (Reginald McGinnis ed...

Who Dat Logo?

Posted on March 25, 2010
Sharp-eyed Dr. Who fans perked up when the newly minted UK Space Agency debuted its logo. Did some Dalek infiltrate and supply the logo for the Dr. Who Space Rocket Group, dating from circa 2005? Hmmm. Read more here.

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